Personal Growth Series
"You Know God Has Saved You... Now What?"
The Topic of Gratitude

"You Know God Has Saved You... Now What?"  The topic that we are covering is GRATITUDE and we will be covering that topic one more time before moving on to the topic of COURAGE.  Last time we connected the idea of knowing that we have a gift, the great gift of a home in heaven, with the idea of feeling "gratitude" or "gratefulness".  Not being compelled or guilted into feeling that way but just a natural outpouring of a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation for the free gift of a home in heaven.

Today I want to pose a challenge to this feeling of gratefulness.  If we say that it is right that we are to be joy filled and peace filled on our journey, is it decent, or right for us, to be joyful and glad when we can look around and see that this very same day might seem like hell itself to some others?  Do we overlook that there is real pain and real troubles?  Do we pretend it isn't there and focus only on the good?

We know that this past Christmas season brought about great pain over in Indonesia with the tsunami tragedy.  This past Christmas season there were people in nursing homes and hospitals that didn't want to be there.  Soldiers were in the terrible situation of acting as road guards checking for bombs and bombers dressed as ordinary civilians.

Sometimes what we see around us can challenge us, even though it is not a part of "our" life.  We feel challenges as to whether it is okay to walk around feeling joyful and grateful.  It is almost like our gratitude can turn to shame when we look around at victims of tragedy, at the poor and homeless.

Lewis Smedes is a Christian author that in one of his books describes just this feeling that he experienced.  It was a beautiful summer day in California, and as he drove up to visit a friend on the Pacific coastline, it was a crystal clear morning, and he paused as he got out of the car and gazed at the beautiful setting and felt a cool breeze.  He just felt a feeling of being glad to be alive and reveled in the beauty of what he saw around him.

He then took the elevator up to the 7th floor and sat at the bedside of his friend who was losing his battle to cancer.  The very thin twig-like fingers that he held onto had once been the proud skilled hands of a surgeon, and the joyful alert eyes of his friend's face now had a hollow gaze to them.

Smedes describes thinking about the "glad to be alive" feeling that he had shortly before, and now experiencing a sense of "guilt" or even "indecency" for feeling that when his friend in front of him is going through such a challenge.

So our challenge to "feeling grateful" is can we walk around with that "feeling" inside that life is wonderful and beautiful? When at the same time we can so easily look around and see pain and troubles that just aren't fair for people to go through.

As we try to figure these things out for our Christian journey, we can turn to Scripture and see that what is shared with us is the picture of an imperfect world here.  This is not the perfectness of heaven here.  If we were to wait for the condition of every person to be fed, then we would probably never be grateful for our daily bread that comes our way.  If we were to wait for every person to have a roof before we would be grateful for the one that covers us, we wouldn't be acknowledging what it is that we are blessed with.

This topic is challenging and an area for us to grow in because a truthful, honest, sincere Christian approach challenges us to be totally aware of the problems and difficulties, not to look away... and yet to find gratefulness and joy in the midst of it.

Let's identify a couple of ways that we might interfere with having that natural gratefulness that comes from our relationship of having a Savior come over us:

Blocking gratefulness by "avoiding"

One of the things that blocks gratefulness for us is to avoid being aware of pain and troubles.  "To feel the joy of relief... we need to feel the anxiousness that comes before."  Your little girl wanders away from home, it has been twelve hours, then the police find her and bring her home just fine!  Your sister hurt in the car accident... it wasn't as bad as the doctors first thought.  Your employment, the only livelihood you know... after all the reports and the waiting, your company decided not to close and move to South America and you still have a job.

We feel the anxiety and tension and then the joy comes.  Totally aware of the problem and grateful for the end result.  That is why we bring up the subject of sin at church,  and what we call the Law.  So that we can know, really know, the job of the Gospel message of salvation and forgiveness through Jesus.  Sometimes we get focused on doing anything to avoid and escape from the first component... the anxiety that comes from knowing about troubles, and pain, and mortality.  We can dedicate our lives to escaping... watching our TV's and computers... eating... reading.  Our culture can give us so, so many ways to easily "be busy" and escape.  A challenge for us in our own journeys is to be fully aware of experiencing and knowing of pain, and troubles, and challenges that are out there, not seeking ways to refuse to believe that they exist... and still letting joy and peace find us.

We shouldn't need to be on the way home from a funeral to be grateful for life itself!  Constant awareness of the one situation helps us to be freshly aware and thankful for the other.

That is the truth that we talk about in grasping the contrast between knowing of the Law, knowing of our sin, aware of the conviction that we are under when we look at ourselves in the light of the Law, knowing that anxiousness, and then knowing of the freedom and the forgiveness that is ours through a personal relationship of faith in Jesus as Savior!

Our sense of gratitude that becomes a part of us on our Christian walk carries with it a joy and peace that we are able to carry around inside us.  That peace and joy doesn't come from escaping away from all the real anxiety of the things of the world, and all the pain.  Our "truth-filled" sense of gratitude comes from looking all that in the face, and knowing the Gospel, knowing that out of love, Jesus, through His cross, has made the way for us to live in the perfectness of heaven... forever!

Blocking gratitude with a false foundation

We can also block a sense of gratitude inside by fooling ourselves that the foundations of the things that we have put in our life, maybe our health, our jobs, our way of life, are far too strong to let pain and troubles and mortality come our way.  The truth is the strongest of foundations that we have for our lives are really very fleeting.  A great job can be gone quite easily; there is a long history of that happening.  Family, friends, tragedies, can happen quite quickly.  Just like we read in the book of Job.  All is fleeting!  Even though it might look like it isn't, like those beautiful homes that got washed away last week in the mudslides.  A week before that they looked beautiful and strong; some of them took only minutes to disappear.

When we face that foundations built here are pretty fleeting, it helps us dance inside and to be joy filled, knowing that we carry around with us, right with us, the strongest foundation there is... a gift of forgiveness that no one can take away.

So, in summary, gratitude or gratefulness is a natural outpouring of our relationship of trusting in Jesus as our Savior... knowing that He has won our forgiveness of sin through His cross and resurrection.  An awareness of that relationship between Savior and sinner brings us joy and peace.  In permitting ourselves to be aware of the Law, to be aware of our mortality, to be aware of pain in the world, it enables us to feel and experience and carry around a great joy and peace that comes from gratitude.  The gratitude of knowing the Gospel!

Yes, you are challenged with your response to the pain and troubles of this world.  We are all challenged to be responsible with our daily bread, knowing that there are so many others that are not getting shared with.  But be grateful!  Gratitude, thankfulness, peace inside... all are nature outflowings from knowing first and foremost of the great, great comforting truth that you have a Savior!